Backbeat, Bio Play of The Beatles' Early Days, to Have Pre-Broadway Run in Los Angeles

Backbeat, the stage adaptation of the 1994 film about the formation of The Beatles, will get its American premiere at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles in 2013, before heading to New York for a Broadway run. The L.A. production will begin performances on January 16, 2013, open on January 23 and run through February 24. No casting for the American production has been announced.

Backbeat, which ran on the West End from September 2011 through February 2012, is co-written by Iain Softley and Stephen Jeffreys, and is based on the film by Softley, Michael Thomas and Stephen Ward. The production will be directed by five-time Tony Award nominee David Leveaux, who also helmed the London production. 

Set in the early 1960s, Backbeat follows John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison and original Beatles members Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe on their journey as young rockers in Liverpool and Hamburg. Sutcliffe's romance with German artist Astrid Kircherr soon gets in the way of the band's music. At only 22, the bassist died the same year the Beatles hired Brian Epstein as their manager and released their first single, "Love Me Do."